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Four Season Cleaners spent more than $200,000 trying to neutralize PCE under the building.

Spills releasing PCE, the cancer-causing chemical used in dry cleaning and metal degreasing, have produced at least 86 underground plumes across Colorado that are poisoning soil and water and fouling air inside buildings.

Cleaning up this chemical is a nightmare — a lesson in the limits of repairing environmental harm. The best that Colorado health enforcers and responsible parties have been able to do is keep the PCE they know about from reaching people.

But based on a review of Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment case files, people likely have been exposed.

For years, PCE (perchloroethylene or perc) penetrated homes and a church in Denver's Cole neighborhood, forcing installation of ventilators. It contaminated municipal drinking water wells near Colorado Springs. It reached rooms where toddlers play at an Aurora day care. And PCE is spreading under a central Denver Safeway at levels far exceeding health standards.

"We're doing our very best to protect public health from this. It is more widespread than we thought it would be 10 or 20 years ago," said Joe Schieffelin, hazardous waste program manager for CDPHE. "We certainly have not found all the sites yet."

The required cleanups drag out for decades because costs are huge.

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Even if funds were sufficient, PCE is proving so pernicious — able to eat through concrete, staying volatile decades after spills — that experts increasingly question whether full cleanup to meet health standards is feasible.

Colorado officials last month adopted a new policy allowing cleanups of PCE and other chemicals at some low-risk sites to stop before health standards are met.

For residents, there's no easy way to find out about PCE in their midst.

"What bothers me, the damage is done," said Clinton Chapman, 60, who learned from CDPHE in 2012 that PCE spreading from a nearby gas station and dry cleaner had contaminated his home.

"Breathing this air could have contributed to my problem with my heart," Chapman said. "It could have contributed to my brother getting cancer."

State contractors installed a vapor-removal system in Chapman's basement — paid for by the dry cleaner. The contractors told him "the air was bad, the ground was bad. They didn't explain the whole deal — but it was free.

"You know, anytime they do it for free, something's up," he said.

Probable carcinogen

Federal authorities long have recognized sharp, sweet-sour-smelling PCE among the most dangerous chemicals contaminating U.S. cities.

A 2012 Environmental Protection Agency reassessment concluded that PCE is a probable carcinogen that also attacks nervous systems.

While occasionally inhaling PCE on dry-cleaned clothes isn't considered harmful, regular exposure is risky enough that the EPA has ordered a phase-out of dry cleaners using PCE in residential buildings by 2020.

Yet PCE remains legal. EPA data show there are 28,000 dry cleaners using it nationwide. About 350 cleaners use it in Colorado.

Dry cleaners favor PCE over other chemicals. The same penetrating properties that make it a nightmare when spilled also make it a wondrous obliterator of blotches on dresses and suits.

"It is actually probably the best solvent out there. If you've got current generation machines and you're handling it responsibly, there shouldn't be an issue," said Brad Ewing, president of the Rocky Mountain Fabricare Association, representing 40 dry cleaners.

Identifying risks

PCE spills in Colorado — some dating to the 1960s, before dangers were understood — have prompted scores of state-ordered cleanups including at least 86 in progress, a Denver Post investigation has found.

Four to 18 new plumes are identified each year. The list has been growing. Cleanups last for years, and CDPHE could not say how many have been completed.

Clinton Chapman reviews paperwork from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment about contamination in his home caused by the chemical PCE spreading from a nearby gas station and dry cleaner. (Photos by Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

Every new discovery sets off a scramble to identify water wells and people who could be at risk.

State law requires intervention when PCE contaminates groundwater at concentrations exceeding 17 parts per billion. In 2010, state water commissioners relaxed that standard from the EPA drinking-water standard of 5 ppb.

For PCE vapors in air, Colorado's limit is 41 micrograms per cubic meter in homes and 175 at work sites. The home limit was relaxed in 2012 from 4 micrograms .

Colorado's new policy for managing sites deemed low risk will allow CDPHE to focus on PCE that threatens people.

The intent is to end chemical cleanups at "relatively few sites," and only after restricting land use in those areas, CDPHE spokesman Warren Smith said.

Colorado's first goal still is to remove known PCE to the point that health standards are met, Smith said. "If that goal cannot be achieved, due to technical or practical constraints," he said, CDPHE's priority would shift to preventing human exposure.

Federal environmental officials evaluated Colorado's new policy. EPA spokesman Rich Mylott said a "passive approach" — relying on natural breakdown of PCE — may be appropriate at sites where major sources have been eliminated, plumes are well-mapped and stable or shrinking, and where controls are in place to keep PCE from reaching people. The EPA will work with Colorado, he said, as the policy is put into practice.

Nobody knows how many sites there are where PCE exceeds state health standards.

Six CDPHE staffers manage the known plumes today.

An estimated 1,000 former dry-cleaner sites exist around Colorado — the majority not tested for PCE contamination.

Nationwide, EPA officials track an estimated 3,800 toxic chemical cleanups, many involving PCE. The Superfund list of major environmental disasters includes at least 50 sites where PCE and related chemicals are present. These include PCE plume spreading from dry-cleaning facilities in a Veterans Affairs hospital in Salt Lake City that has contaminated springs, aquifers and creeks, forcing city officials to shut down a municipal well.

PCE likely will be found at 50 to 70 percent of the untested dry-cleaner sites in Colorado, said Denver lawyer Kemper Will, a former EPA employee who has represented industry, property owners and dry cleaners in numerous cases.

PCE contamination of indoor air is a serious concern, and businesses often aren't as careful handling chemicals as they should be, Will said. But it's not feasible to conduct full cleanups to meet today's highly protective health standards. "We cannot afford, as a nation, to purify all old mistakes."

Will lobbied for the policy giving state officials greater flexibility in deciding how much cleanup must be done. Reducing PCE levels in groundwater to 17 ppb isn't always necessary, he said. A smarter approach would focus on indoor air.

Four Season dry cleaner owner Chuck Grams has spent more than $200,000 trying to neutralize the PCE under his building. He paid for air tests in the surrounding neighborhood, a 24-hour system that aerates PCE pooled underground, and the vapor-removal systems installed in a church and in seven homes, including Chapman's.

The spills happened more than 25 years ago, when his family's business used old machines and the dangers of PCE weren't fully understood, he said. State and EPA authorities notified him of the problem in 2012.

Grams was worried when he learned PCE had contaminated air inside homes.

"Everything was foreign to me. When they talked about the problems, that was new to me. I had no clue," he said. "Now this neighborhood is getting cleaner, not dirtier."

Property owners often cannot or will not step up in this way.

CDPHE enforcers say pushing a property owner too hard to excavate tainted soil, or inject other chemicals to neutralize PCE, could drive them bankrupt and leave an abandoned toxic site.

"Potentially, people can run out of money during the process of cleaning these up," said Walter Avramenko, chief of CDPHE's compliance unit. "The last thing we want to do is put somebody out of business and then have nobody do the cleanup."

When owners can't handle the cost, CDPHE officials can slow down cleanups. A shaky owner might be required to do work costing around $10,000 every six months, instead of $100,000, hazardous waste program manager Schieffelin said. "If there's a need to do that, we will work with them to do that."

There's no state fund giving backup assurance for PCE cleanups to get done — the way a state fund of more than $500 million was used to clean leaking underground petroleum storage tanks at gas stations.

Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin have set up funds for dry-cleaner site cleanup and remediation. However, those states struggle to raise enough from fees.

Hidden plumes

Dry cleaners are found in most communities nationwide. But the PCE problem hasn't been as visible as the large-scale industrial disasters that mobilize advocacy groups. Unlike oil rig ruptures and chemical spills into rivers, PCE plumes remain hidden.

They formed because, in the past, PCE legally could be flushed into sewers, dumped out backdoors, emptied down alleys. Dry cleaners didn't grasp the potential cumulative impact of day-to-day drips on their floors.

PCE is heavy, sinking through soil and groundwater to form pools that can remain volatile for decades and do not readily break down.

Health authorities say they worry most about sites where PCE levels in soil and groundwater are so high that vapors rise up and contaminate buildings.

For example, over the past few months, environmental contractors have been drilling test wells near the Safeway at East Sixth Avenue and Corona Street in central Denver, investigating the scope and hunting for the source of a PCE plume spreading from a former Hanneck dry cleaners.

In 2011, PCE was measured in soil and groundwater under the Safeway and a restaurant at levels as high as 231,000 ppb.

Safeway installed systems to remove PCE from air and water to protect workers and shoppers. But the PCE remains. A state-ordered groundwater test in October found levels as high as 865,023 ppb, records show.

The PCE is worst along the north side of Safeway's property. CDPHE officials said that, while tests show elevated PCE approaching homes to the south, the levels there are below a 250 ppb threshold they use to assess the risk of vapors penetrating buildings.

Residents notified

At the Cole site, CDPHE's experts and contractors traced PCE vapors found inside homes to a plume spreading from the Four Season dry cleaner and a former gas station at the corner of East Bruce Randolph Avenue and York Street. They measured PCE in groundwater at levels up to 12,500 ppb, records show.

A different state agency, the labor department division responsible for leaking underground petroleum tanks, found the PCE in groundwater while monitoring benzene.

CDPHE officials then went door-to-door, notifying residents — some who have lived in the neighborhood for decades — and asked to conduct air tests. These found PCE contaminating indoor air at levels ranging from 19 to 580 micrograms per cubic meter.

The residents of seven homes and leaders of Pleasant Green Church of God in Christ agreed to have vapor-removal systems installed.

Pastor John Norwood, 73, said he was told to notify health authorities if PCE vapors exceed a threshold marked on a pipe.

"Is this fixing it?" Norwood said, checking a gauge. "To get it out of the dirt, you've got to remove the dirt. I don't think that pipe in the ground is going to siphon it all."

In the house where the Chapman family has lived since 1962, tests found PCE in air at 19 micrograms, above the 4 microgram standard at the time.

Chapman said he slept in a basement bedroom until he was 18 and left to play basketball at the University of Southern California. He said his younger brother, Sammy, took over the bedroom.

When Sammy died in 2010, he had lung cancer and had been diagnosed with diabetes, Chapman said. He has contacted a lawyer, but he doubted they can prove PCE caused Sammy's death.

Nobody has requested a cancer cluster evaluation of spill effects in the neighborhood, or asked for an evaluation of impacts of past exposure, said David Walker, the cleanup project manager for CDPHE's Hazardous Materials Waste Management Division. "The impacted area is quite small and it may be difficult to do a valid statistical study."

However, Walker said, "it is obvious from the results of the recent indoor air samples that some of the residents have been exposed to concentrations of PCE in their indoor air at levels much higher than CDPHE considers acceptable."

Contaminated air

PCE in air becomes especially worrisome when plumes are discovered near the elderly and children.

A few years ago, flood water seeped into Children's Chalet, a day-care center at a strip mall at 982 S. Peoria St. in Aurora. Children's Chalet works in partnership with Aurora Public Schools and is licensed to care for 135 preschoolers, toddlers and infants.

New Look Cleaners operated next door.

Children's Chalet director Alia Omer said in an interview that she had a sense the dry-cleaning machines used dangerous chemicals. And when Omer saw floodwaters rising in day-care rooms, she worried that chemicals could reach children.

Mall owners were ordered to test air and excavate soil. State health officials determined that the former dry cleaner's sloppy practices led to PCE contamination at "concentrations that far exceed our health-based action levels," records show.

A fan was installed to ventilate day-care rooms.

But at the end of 2011, records show, PCE in air still measured 31 micrograms in the infant room and 28 in another room, well above the 4 microgram health standard at the time.

By then, the day-care center had expanded into the former dry cleaner unit. In 2012, CDPHE officials ordered installation of a vapor-extraction system to run continuously. PCE levels decreased.

Children's Chalet manager Anwar Elhoweris said the air is now safe.

State health officials could not rule out the possibility that children were exposed before PCE was discovered.

Nobody notified parents. And after reviewing data last year, CDPHE and EPA toxicologists decided site conditions presented an extremely low risk of health problems for children and workers. Health department spokesman Smith said a decision was made that notifying parents served no useful purpose and was not required.

Tainted water

PCE-tainted water also raises concerns. In 2006, routine water tests at municipal wells near Security, southeast of Colorado Springs, detected PCE at levels up to double the 5 ppb drinking water standard.

Thousands of residents in the Security area rely on 10 wells, each sunk 40 feet deep along Fountain Creek.

The PCE forced a shut-down of one well and intensive monitoring of others, Security water and sanitation district manager Roy Heald said.

Groundwater in the area previously had been contaminated with PCE from a Schlage Lock industrial plant, which conducted a cleanup. This time, authorities traced the plume to a King's One-Hour dry cleaner more than 1 mile away. State records show the owner fled the U.S. There was nobody to turn to for cleanup.

"We were concerned because that well was part of our drinking water supplies, and the bigger concern was that the plume was going to contaminate more wells," Heald said.

PCE eventually was detected in four wells. EPA emergency responders determined they'd have to build a water treatment plant to reroute tainted water through aeration tanks, EPA coordinator Steven Merritt said.

Five years later, a $2 million plant is complete and ready to begin removing PCE from up to 1,500 gallons of water per minute.

Heald shook his head, lamenting that PCE spilled a mile away could cause so much trouble. "It is so hard to deal with this problem after it has been created," he said.

State officials have known about problems at Katzson Brothers, a regional PCE distributor, since the 1980s. An EPA test at the company's Denver headquarters at 960 Vallejo St. in 1992 measured PCE in groundwater at 154,000 ppb.

But it wasn't until 2006 that a corrective action agreement was reached between Katzson and the EPA, which supervises this cleanup because of the complexity.

The cost of full cleanup was estimated at $300,000, and Katzson posted that much as financial assurance.

Then, in September 2011, a test found PCE in groundwater at a former loading area along railroad tracks at 310,000 ppb.

Katzson has installed a system to control PCE inside its buildings, EPA spokesman Mylott said. There's no evidence PCE has reached the South Platte River, which flows to the west of the plant, he said. And injection of potassium permanganate to neutralize PCE appears to be working.

"We're encouraged that these oxidation treatments have been effective, reducing PCE concentrations in the source area by more than 90 percent (to 22,000 ppb) in the groundwater," he said.

Katzson's manager was not available to discuss the cleanup.

Since 1995, Katzson has been receiving and distributing PCE in sealed containers, eliminating use of the above-ground storage tanks identified as a likely source of spills.

Public registry

But even as PCE-handling practices improve, plumes produced by old spills present such widespread and seemingly perpetual challenges that experts increasingly question the feasibility of full cleanup at every site.

Under Colorado's new policy, any site where cleanup ends before health standards are met would have to be listed in a public registry. The concentrations of PCE and other toxic chemicals would have to be specified.

The registry would be in addition to an existing registry that lists toxic sites where land-use restrictions are imposed — for example, prohibiting gardening, day care and building new homes.

"It is becoming more widely understood," Avramenko said, "that our ability to clean up the complex sites is limited."

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